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This is a master project covering the Mormon Pioneers.
The original Brigham Young led pioneer company has a separate project page. Other projects are organized by year of departure.
Choose one of the 24 Projects Below
- 1846 Ship Brooklyn,
- 1847 Brigham Young (Original Pioneer Company)
Additional Pioneer Company Yearly Migrations:
- 1847, 1848, 1849, 1850, 1851, 1852, 1853, 1854, 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858, 1859, 1860, 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865, 1866, 1867, 1868
Project Totals:
- Mormon-Pioneers-1846-ship-Brooklyn: 153
- Mormon-Pioneer-Overland-Trail-Brigham-Young-Pioneer-Company-1847: 148
- Mormon-Pioneers-1847: 793
- Mormon-Pioneers-1848: 1147
- Mormon-Pioneers-1849: 580
- Mormon-Pioneers-1850: 1099
- Mormon-Pioneers-1851: 565
- Mormon-Pioneers-1852: 1349
- Mormon-Pioneers-1853: 461
- Mormon-Pioneers-1854: 212
- Mormon-Pioneers-1855: 299
- Mormon-Pioneers-1856: 419
- Mormon-Pioneers-1857: 151
- Mormon-Pioneers-1858: 58
- Mormon-Pioneers-1859: 186
- Mormon-Pioneers-1860: 234
- Mormon-Pioneers-1861: 270
- Mormon-Pioneers-1862: 257
- Mormon-Pioneers-1863: 193
- Mormon-Pioneers-1864: 206
- Mormon-Pioneers-1865: 36
- Mormon-Pioneers-1866: 169
- Mormon-Pioneers-1867: 21
- Mormon-Pioneers-1868: 144
Grand Total: 9,150
Finding Aids
"Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah"
How to Participate
Please collaborate on a specific year's (1847-1868) project page. If you have an ancestor who was a Mormon pioneer consult the link listed under finding aids to verify the year of your ancestor's migration. Then after getting yourself added as a collaborator for that year navigate to your ancestor's profile and under the "More Actions" link choose "Add to Project" and select the Mormon Pioneer project to which your ancestor should be included on.
- Include in the "About Me" section of each person a brief biographical sketch of their lives. See any of the pioneers on the 1847 Brigham Young project as an example.
- Include a photograph of your ancestor if one exists.
- Your pioneer's profiles should be marked as "public" and not "private".
- All included profiles should include full identifying information including birth and death dates as well as birth and death locations. It would also be very helpful if the immediate family of your pioneer ancestor, (their parents, siblings and children) profiles were public profiles also.
Death Rates for Mormon Pioneers:
"...Mormon pioneer immigrants of the nineteenth century experienced a monumental endeavor fraught with considerable difficulty and danger. Both transoceanic and transcontinental travel was attended with increased risk because of a wide variety of acute diseases, communicable illness, and accidental injury. It was not an undertaking to be taken lightly.
Many of the immigrants paid with their lives in the effort to follow the advice of Church leaders to gather with the Saints in Zion. The exact number of Saints who died is not known, but estimates suggest that between 1846–69, some forty-two hundred to five thousand perished during some phase of the journey. Some 670–700 died crossing the Atlantic or the Pacific, while another 3,400–4,300 died during the overland journey. The period from 1846–48 stands out as the years with the highest death rate and most intense affliction. Some data suggest that overall death rates were lower than the 4 to 6 percent that characterized groups on the other overland trails, despite the fact that Mormon immigrant parties typically included larger numbers of young, elderly, and infirm than did the average immigrant group of the day, which was comprised primarily of young, healthy adults.
The equanimity and determination with which the Latter-day Saint immigrants faced these trials are a testament to their faith in the cause in which they were involved..."